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Gross works to maintain lake's integrity

BY MELANIE CSEPIGA
Times Correspondent | Friday, February 01, 2008


Although his home wasn't directly on the lake, Bob Gross spent much of his time on Cedar Lake where he enjoyed water sports and always seemed to have a job.

"My grandfather bought the property on Lauerman in 1948. We're third generation. ... I've always worked on the lake," said Gross, who owns Pinecrest Marina.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Gross founded the Cedar Lake Enhancement Association, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lake's health, and has worked tirelessly since the early 1990s to find, and fund, ways to improve the lake's water quality.

Gross credits those in CLEA and the community for the group's success.

"I knew that we needed to win the water quality issue. Then the image of Cedar Lake would change. It needed to be changed," Gross said.

After nearly two decades of projects -- including such things as Potawatomi Park, the seawall and landscaping around the municipal complex and the Museum of the Red Cedars, as well as wetland management and sediment control measures -- CLEA and Gross are nearing the culmination of their efforts.

By July, the town will learn the results of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that will likely recommend a project that would include dredging the lake.

In addition to the dredging, Gross said, "We want to have the stormwater projects that will come now with the stormwater fee. When that is done, that is the culmination."

Preventing stormwater and the sediment it carries is key to the lake's integrity, he said.

Gross estimates that, by the time it is done, CLEA will have helped to secure $20 million in grant funds from the Corps, the state and federal government.

Gross said he doesn't see himself as an environmentalist, but simply someone who wants to improve the community he loves.

"I told people going in that I would work on this until it is done," Gross said, adding, "It'll be 25 years as a volunteer."